


Primeval 100 Drabbles: 201 - 250

by Annariel



Series: Primeval 100 Drabbles [5]
Category: Alice (2009), Bewitched, Henry V - Shakespeare, Primeval, Primeval: New World, Urban Dead
Genre: Community: primeval100, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 49
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mixture of drabbles for prompts drawing from all of the Primeval series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Macbeth hath Murdered Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to collect together the first drabbles for the third 50 Primeval 100 prompts as I write them. Therefore it is a work in progress since these only get tackled with p100 does a "past challenges" week. One of the reasons I've put "Choose not to Warn" and not listed characters and pairings is that this may well vary as more get added and the characters and pairings would probably quickly tend towards "all". Since I can add specific warning as well as "Choose not to Warn" I will add specific warnings as they crop up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 201: Sleep

**HELEN**

The doom of man beats ever in my brain  
Shattered cars, fell beasts, the swarms that fill the skies.  
I thought I knew, I thought I was, I thought.  
No matter. All is undone. Dead, he is  
And at my hand. I'll sleep no more. I'll be  
No more. Yet all the people will sleep sound  
Oh! Mother Earth, this stain from thee I cleanse.  
No more will smoke thy skies with darkness fill.  
No more will man thy natural wealth remove.  
No child will weep. No child will laugh. No Stephen.  
No Nick...

 _Exit, pursued by a raptor_


	2. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 202

Matt had developed a morning ritual. He'd stare at himself in the mirror and think of his father. Then he'd deliberately think of the people he worked with: Jess, Connor, Abby, Becker, even Lester. Mentally he ticked each one off and reminded himself that his loyalty was not to them.

He didn't even think about Emily.

It was far harder to be loyal to an abstract, to the dim hope of a better future, than it was to be loyal to real, breathing, individual human beings. Matt closed his eyes and told himself it was far harder, but far better.


	3. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 203

The sound of gunfire was echoing down the corridor. Abby struggled with the heavy helmet of her disguise. It was made for one of Burton's guards and they were all big burly men and it kept slipping down over her eyes. She checked the list of cells, realised where she was, and shot out the lock.

The door swung open. Connor lifted his head from a make-shift bunk and blinked blearily at her.

"Wha?" he began.

She couldn't help it and pulled off her helmet so he could see who it was. "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."


	4. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 204

"For serious," asked Lyle. "Why do you stick with the ARC? It can't be doing your previously stellar career any good."

"Would you believe me if I said I felt a sense of loyalty?"

Lyle took a thoughtful swig of his pint. "No."

"I stick around for shit and giggles?"

"I might consider that."

"The anomalies are the single biggest, most influential event since the atomic bomb. My stellar career may be suffering a short-term set back. History will see things differently."

"Now that has the ring of truth."

"Besides, even Temple has a certain endearing quality."

Lyle just laughed.


	5. Once More Unto the Breach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 205

His final, rousing speech had failed. The soldiers had abandoned the breach.

The entire disastrous campaign had lurched to a muddy and disease-ridden halt. They had been here a month. Again and again the attackers were repelled from the accursed town's walls and the strange light that hung in the gap. The tired soldiers struggled back to the King full of tales of dragons and monsters.

And then the light failed. When the Governor appeared to parley, Harry thought to himself that if he couldn't inspire his troops with words, maybe he could use them to terrify his enemies instead.


	6. Matt Anderson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 206

Emily inhabited the 21st century like a new and uncomfortable outfit. Matt observed the way her nose wrinkled at the ever-present smell of disinfectant and the way her hand lingered uncertainly on strange highly manufactured surfaces.

The century didn't fit either of them and it fascinated him the ways they were the same and the ways they were different.

Emily walked with the same confidence that the natives had; confidence that the world was, fundamentally a safe place.

Sometimes he loved her for the ways they were the same and sometimes he hated her for the ways they were different.


	7. Cold Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 207

_Someone_ had to be to blame for her ridiculous predicament and that someone was going to suffer.

Her tail twitched angrily. It was probably Nick. He'd turned her into a reptile out of petty spite, as if that could quench the fiery passion in her blood.

"Good boy!"

The lad would be next 'Good _boy_ ' indeed.

Then her eyes narrowed as a familiar figure appeared. What was Abigail Maitland doing here?

"I see you like dinosaurs."

"Yeah! They're awesome."

Helen snorted in irritation, it came out as a chitter, which drew their attention.

"His name's Rex."

Oh for fuck's sake!


	8. Getting Married

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 208

"Don't they realise this is just a convenience?" Christine hissed angrily at him, as her parents fluttered excitedly around the wedding guests.

"Did you tell them otherwise?"

She humphed, and posed for photographs, and even forgot herself enough to throw the bouquet before rushing off to a meeting.

"I got your secretary to clear some space for a honeymoon," he mentioned casually, as she scrambled into her car.

She rolled her eyes but came on the honeymoon anyway.

When the short sympathetic note arrived from the ministry, he packed the photographs away carefully and wondered if anyone else would mourn.


	9. Damaged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 209 (Damage)

"Leave me Connor! Save yourself!" Abby shouted.

She looked between her feet. Something fell from her pocket, tumbling over and over, down into the chasm.

"What do you want that for?" her mother asked.

It was just a decorative china pill box, but Abby had loved it since she was small. The glaze was cracked and there was a small chip where her grandfather had once knocked it to the floor.

"It's damaged." Her mother pointed out.

Abby slipped it into her pocket. Sometimes even damaged things are precious.

She watched it drop.

"I'm not letting you go!" said Connor.


	10. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 210

Fear has a smell. It makes you think of the sharp taste of salt on your tongue, and musky oak flavours deep in red wine. It's the smell of sweat and pheromones and blood. It's the smell that brings predators, no matter what millenia you find yourself in. The salty, rich, dark, scent of fear.

Ethan can smell it on his victims. It sets his heart racing with the memory of being hunted. It brings back his own fear, that kept him alive for so long. The fear that he needs now to keep going, to know he still lives.


	11. Leather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 211

The house felt empty. Every footstep echoed. Nick shook his head, irritated at his own sensibility, and threw his coat onto a chair.

A memory of Stephen, teasing him about untidiness, made him pick it up again.

As Nick opened the cupboard door, the smell of leather hit him. Hanging alone in the dusty space was Stephen's jacket. It must have been left behind, some far off time. Nick fingered its soft, smooth sleeve and the stale, leathery smell of Stephen wafted up. Then Nick collapsed to his knees, still clutching at the sleeve and finally allowed himself to cry.


	12. Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 212

The anomaly was closed but the bright sunlight and lakeside location had tempted the team to linger. 

Connor was lying on his front staring fixedly ahead.

"Penny for them?" asked Abby.

"I think," he said slowly, "that its an Archaefructus."

Abby lay down next to him where she could see the small plant at the waters' edge. It had a long stem with delicate seed pods in the middle and leaves above. She breathed out carefully; the first known flower.

"What do we do with it?"

Connor sighed. "Dig it up and take it back to the lab, I suppose."


	13. The Light at the End of the Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 213 (and 333 Past Challenges)

Mac found himself in a kitchen. An extraordinarily pretty man regarded him in mild surprise, a beer bottle halfway to his mouth.

"He's here at at last!" the man shouted.

"At last?" Mac queried.

"This is sanctuary. Someone must have briefed you about it. You've been fading in and out for days." 

Mac could hear sounds of shouts and running feet. A single foot bounced eagerly into the room. 

"What? Where?" Mac asked, eyeing the foot warily.

"You _are_ from the ARC?"

"You know what the ARC is?" Mac's attention snapped back.

"You'll need beer, lots of beer, and Claudia."


	14. And then there were none

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 214

Desert. Sun. An anomaly.

"Not much to see," remarked a man, brushing dust from his suit.

A woman shrugged. "No living creatures in parts of the Triassic."

"Three now," he returned.

A safety catch was disengaged.

"Threaten me and you'll never discover the secrets of the anomalies." The woman frowned at the last man.

"Who says my real employer wants to know?"

The man in the suit shouted once in surprised betrayal as blood blossomed across his chest.

Two living creatures.

Even as the killer turned, a knife was leaving the woman's hand.

One.

She turned towards the sparkling light.


	15. Trapped on the Wrong Side of an Anomaly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 215

She purchased a copy of the _On the Origin of Species_ and struggled her way through the dry words, confused by how different it was from the reality.

Her husband disliked her interest. His father was a clergyman. Why discuss anything other than fashion, the difficulty of keeping good staff and the iniquities of the Second Reform Bill?

The crinoline was heavy. It dragged her backwards. The corset hauled in her waist. Why breath properly when your skirts would tangle and tear on any serious walk?

She was trapped by her clothes, her sex and the ignorance of her time.


	16. Subterranean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 216

It flashed across Connor's mind that he had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it.

In another moment down the Rabbit-hole went Connor, never once considering how in the world he was to get out again.

Thump! thump! down he came upon a heap of sticks.

A hand placed a top hat upon his head, a slightly worn hat, but stylish nevertheless, Connor noted.

"I need you," said a familiar voice, "to do me a favour."

His own face, apparently bedaubed with Abby's make-up, looked down at him and winked.


	17. Strawberries and Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 217

"According to possible world theory..."

"Connor, love, can't we have a night off work?"

Abby looked tired, tense, and unhappy.

Connor sighed. "Sure."

 **In some possible world**

"Honestly there's a possible world where..." Connor paused and waved a jug of cream around dangerously in the sunlight. "I don't know, where Helen went mad and shot Nick."

Sarah laughed, rescuing the cream, "...and I was eaten!"

"...and I never existed!" Claudia giggled.

Stephen opened his mouth, as if to speak, then shrugged and bit slowly into a strawberry.

"Let's be glad we're in this one," said Ryan into the ensuing silence.


	18. Misjudged and Judged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 218 (Jess Parker)

## Misjudged

Gervase wasn't looking for a wife because, well, this was the 21st century and that was clearly ridiculous. Therefore he didn't get Jess Parker's phone number because she had a bubbly and friendly manner which, with a little polishing, would go down well with constituents. However, it was definitely a plus that she had no interest in university and had some kind of switchboard job. That would bring in some pocket money for her until the family came along, but she wouldn't mind leaving it.

The, apparently discreet, handsome gay friend was a nice bonus, if Gervase were completely honest.

## Judged

Jess Parker didn't call. Which was good. Women shouldn't be too forward. However it was unfortunate that she'd accidentally given him the wrong number. Gervase made a mental note that she wasn't good with figures.

It was doubly unfortunate that the number she'd given him was for a company that supplied incontinence products. It took him a surprisingly long time to convince the receptionist that no, he wasn't embarrassed about his problem, he really didn't want anything they had to sell. No, no matter how discreet and well-made they were. No, no, definitely not even a complimentary set of knickers.


	19. The Carboniferous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 219 (Picture Prompt) and 333 (Past Challenges)

Colonel Hall had made a video justifying his actions. Ange found it among the Project Magnet assets.

"Picture the Carboniferous," Hall said, eyes gleaming into the camera. "Fifty million years of swampy wetland forming vast oil fields beneath the soil. We'll have burned our way through them in a handful of centuries." Hall shook his head in sorrow. "It has to be managed. Project Magnet will save the human race."

Toby snorted from where she sat on a sofa in the Cross Photonics lab. "Mad as a box of frogs! I'm sorry Ange but he really was."

Ange didn't disagree.

**Challenge:**


	20. In the News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 220

Lester had never known who was behind the gagging order. He'd spouted the party line of course `for the protection of the public' and had been surprised that only Hart ever spotted the obvious contradictions embedded within it.

But now subtle probes were emerging from within government. Whispers about "exploring" new approaches. Lester was cautious, as were his international counterparts. They might not have liked the gagging order, but they were all political survivors. The timing of the hints made it clear where the order came from and, even now, political survivors were wary of moving against the Murdoch empire.


	21. Computer Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 221

"There's an anomaly there," Connor repeated with increasing confidence.

"No. There. Isn't." Becker shone his torch into the chasm. "It's a computer glitch."

"I've checked. There's nothing wrong with the computer. We just can't see the anomaly."

"If you're wrong we'll fall to our deaths."

"If we don't take the chance we'll starve in these catacombs."

Connor looked pleadingly at Becker in the faint light of the torch. "It's not a glitch. There _is_ an anomaly and it's our only chance to get out of here."

Becker looked at him and wondered quite how much he trusted Connor's technical skills.


	22. Footprints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 222

"The sand people ride single file to hide their numbers."

"We're not riding." Abby scowled at Connor's back.

"In Greek myth Hermes walked backwards..."

"Is there a point to this?" Abby interrupted.

Connor stopped still, feet slowly sinking into the muddy Cretaceous river bank and frowned. "Not really, just thinking about footprints."

Abby closed her eyes, counted to ten and thought of Pollyanna.

Five minutes later, they were walking backwards, Connor's arms grasping Abby's waist as she struggled to place her footprints in his. Laughter began to bubble up helplessly inside her. Giggling like children they continued on their way.


	23. Caffeine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 223

Extensive debate had been devoted to `the Coffee Room'. Eventually Matt was ordered to drink Nescafe. He thought it tasted like shit, but he got used to it.

* * *

Emily took one sip and shuddered. From then on Matt had twice as shit-tasting, twice as strong, horrific stuff with sludge at the bottom brewed in the approved Victorian fashion.

* * *

"It's Camomile Tea!" said Jess.

"What?"

"You hate coffee," observed Abby. "We're taking turns finding something you do like. Becker's next."

Matt saw the look of evil amusement on Becker's face and sipped the Camomile Tea with determination. "It's lovely!" he said.


	24. Why Didn't you tell me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 224

An accusation is forever on my lips. Now that I'm dead, when there's nothing I can bloody do with the information, I get to see Nicholas Cutter alone.

Every morning he places my photo on the mantlepiece and each evening he takes it down and shuts it in a drawer, his mouth stretched into a grimace of distress.

Tonight he closed the drawer with a bang, but the words "love you!" were on his lips, spoken in barely a whisper but loud enough for ghostly ears to catch.

And so I circle back around to my one and only question.


	25. Sleepless Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 225

The heat rolled down on the city like an oppressive blanket. Matt, unused to duvet and mattress, was forced from his bed. He would stand at the picture window, sweat beading on his brow and in the small of his back.

On her first night in the flat, he heard Emily approach, his senses honed by a childhood of watchful nights.

"There's a storm coming," she said quietly, standing close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin.

Matt thought of sleepless nights once more; of dozens of people crammed silently beneath the earth.

"Yes," he agreed.


	26. Sarah Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 226

Sarah appeared unimpressed by my manly bodyguarding. So she fought dinosaurs but hey! Zombie Apocalypse survivor me!

I lounged against the door and flicked Slasher's safety on and off. Yeah, yeah, irresponsible I know! but the sound is cool!

"Don't take the safety off unless you mean to shoot," Sarah observed without looking up from her book.

Damn!

She snapped the book shut, sending up a cloud of dust.

"I know when the time lines diverged!" She grinned excitedly. "Now all we have to do is fix it."

Calm, clever, cool, beautiful! I was so not in with a chance.


	27. Stuff Professionalism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 227

"Stuff Professionalism," Claudia's Mum had said once.

Claudia had slipped a Citizen's advice leaflet into the envelope together with a bland and unhelpful official response from her department. In retrospect she worried that the subtle hint was unprofessional.

It was a mantra she kept at the back of her mind. Most of the time professionalism was what kept the rickety old machine of government on its tracks but, just occasionally, you needed to stuff it. The difference between flying high and crashing dismally was spotting those moments.

Claudia hoped that her accurate instinct for such moments had finally failed her.


	28. The Menagerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 228

**10am** Lorraine doubled the "mammoth feed" order. **11am** she caught a diictodon and returned it to Connor.

At lunchtime it was a complex permission form to get Sarah into a private archive.

She took a phone call to confirm that yes, the man on the bike was from the government. In her coffee break she made soothing noises to Becker and agreed about the need for discipline in the field.

When she finally got home and kicked off her shoes, taking a glass of wine from Jenny, she couldn't help laughing at her question.

"So how was the Menagerie today?"


	29. Backwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 229

The key break-through would be moving backwards. That was Christine's first thought when she read the files on Helen Cutter. It was a thought that blossomed into reality when an obscure research paper fell onto her desk and she realised it told her how to maintain and move an open anomaly.

The thought became a determination when she foolishly shot her mouth off to Becker. Trying too hard to impress people had ever been her Achilles heel.

She would go back and fix that mistake and a dozen others and then people would understand the true potential of the anomalies.


	30. How Far We've Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 230

She'd come a long way from a deeply inauspicious start.

"Greed, heedless of caution, that's your problem," Burton had told her when he first introduced himself. Then he apparently forgot she existed.

Caroline watched him and learned a few things about greed and lack of caution.

So she had risen and risen with a mixture of charm and determination and, with her, had risen the anomaly project.

Caroline Steel, CEO of Prospero Industries, smiled at the view from her penthouse, overlooking the empire that had blossomed in Philip Burton's wake. They had both come a long way from inauspicious starts.


	31. I'd do Anything for Love (But I won't do that)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 231

"I'm stuck!"

Connor coughed. The collapse of the ceiling had brought down a load of dust, as well as the rubble that had him trapped.

"OK. There's some charge left in both guns. We sit tight. Becker will find us." Abby couldn't see the raptors in the gloom, but they were out there somewhere.

"Becker's miles away. There's no point in both of us getting eaten. You need to get out of here."

"No! We wait. This way, at least you have a chance."

"Abby, if you love me..."

"Connor Temple don't you dare even think about finishing that sentence!"


	32. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 232.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have written a _Bewitched_ crossover and for once I am totally at a loss who to blame. Probably Fred. I'm afraid, this probably won't make much sense if you've never seen the show.

"Jess, have you seen my stapler?"

"It's just behind you, sir. On the filing cabinent."

"Really? I thought I'd checked there. Well I never."

* * *

"Damn! That was my favourite watch!"

"What's wrong. Let me look!"

"Battery cover's bust, Jess. You won't be able to fix it."

"Give it here, now! Becker. I'm not just a pretty face you know... There! mended."

"Have I told you, you're an angel?"

"Not recently, no."

* * *

"Jess, did I just see your nose twitch?"

"Emily, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Besides, I saw how you rounded up those Epigaulus yesterday."


	33. The Natural History Museum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 233

Nearly all the publications Nick had had on the go before the anomaly project started were now in print. There was nothing publishable in the works so he'd agreed to write a chapter on Wallace for a pop science book. He was grumpy as a bear about it.

The search for an angle took him to the Natural History Museum; drawers full of beetles and detailed hand-written notes. His mood worsened. They weren't even able to amass a collection of specimens and notes from Earth's past. No future Wallace or Darwin would be inspired by the work of Nick Cutter.


	34. Where do we go from here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 234

Connor hit a key on his laptop with a flourish of determination. There was a whooshing sound, audible over even the screams and roars, and then silence.

"What happened?" whispered Abby.

She peered out from under their table. The chaos of anomalies and creatures had gone. A few remaining civilians stood, blinking in surprise, amid the debris.

"One time crystal rendered inoperative. I'm a genius me."

Abby kissed him. "No more anomalies?"

"Nope!"

She felt a smile break across her face. "That's wonderful."

Connor grinned and then a look of confusion appeared. "So... what are we going to do now?"


	35. View from the Lighthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 235

Connor had become fascinated by birds. Once he'd been too caught up in the thrill of dinosaurs to notice their descendents. Now he could watch them for hours.

It was fifty years since the lorry came out of nowhere and took Abby; thirty since their son had emigrated to a better life in far off China; ten since he bought the old lighthouse in a final fit of eccentricity.

Connor had no intention of going anywhere else, ever again. He was content to sit quietly, rug across his knees, gazing at the spectacular view. He watched the seagulls, and waited.


	36. Tall, Dark and Handsome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 236

The ARC is a tall structure; a symbol of ambition. In the dark interior a dozen creatures that should no longer be shuffle and murmur, trapped as a secret inside the dreaming edifice. The mammoth mourns the wide plains of home. Rex no longer soars on the wind, high above the tall buildings.

Philip Burton knows the rewards will be handsome if he can crack the enigma of the anomalies. His eyes are fixed up high upon the prize. The creatures trapped in darkness are, at best, an inconvenience. He hides them away and would prefer to forget they exist.


	37. The Call of the Wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 237

Helen's feet were aching after a few hours on London's crowded streets. The pavements were hard underfoot as she fought through the stifling crowd and the close summer heat. The people endlessly shifted forcing her into constant wariness to avoid colliding with them. She was drowning in smells: diesel; unwashed bodies; fast food.

Eventually she had everything she needed; new boots; spare parts for the radio; more pencils and notebooks. With relief she plunged through the anomaly and then she was running, fast and unimpeded, across the open plain, relishing the soft ground, the fresh air and the bright sunlight.


	38. Stephen Hart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 238

When we came up to university, I figured I was the cool one. Stephen was young and awkward, all knees and elbows and spots. Then one day I woke up and Stephen had grown into his height and taken up shooting and pentathlon and paleontology and suddenly he was the cool one.

My Christmas card got returned this year with a short official letter. So now all I have are few impersonal words and a lot of regret about how, once upon a time, I'd been young and in love and too much of a jealous dickhead to realise it.


	39. The Home Office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 239

Robert Weston sighed at the memo his PA, Claire, had just given him. In the space of a couple of hours it had passed through a surprising number of offices. Some professor had spooked the local police in the Forest of Dean. The PM wanted everything smoothed over.

Claire looked expectantly at him, pen poised over her notepad. He had neither the time for this nor the staff.

"Miss Brown arrived this morning on a Fast Stream posting?" suggested Claire.

"Excellent idea. Field reporting will be good experience for her."

What was so special about the Forest of Dean anyway?


	40. Keeping Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 240

I dream sometimes.

Claudia Brown is there. I'm not sure where exactly; outside though, on a bench. The bench is elegant; made from curved metal and weatherworn wooden slats. Claudia is rubbing her hands together and her breath mists in the cold air.

Nick comes and sits down beside her. He says something. I hear no words. She smiles and then laughs as he follows the remark up. He takes hold of her hands and rubs them. All the time he is smiling and talking and she smiles with him.

Then I wake up with a warm feeling of hope.


	41. Toys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 241

"Conn?"

Abby was wearing a large, floppy cap, throwing her eyes into shadow. Connor couldn't see the expression in them.

"Conn?" she repeated and jerked forwards.

Connor resisted the temptation to back away. She showed affection so rarely these days. He brushed at her hair, dislodging the cap. Then he really did leap back. A red light flashed on the device clamped to her forhead.

"Don't you like my new toy?" Burton stepped into the room behind Abby.

In the corridor stood the anomaly team, the red lights flashing on their foreheads.

"Such a lot of new toys," crooned Philip.


	42. All The Trimmings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 242

There were, in Becker's opinion, far worse places than the ARC to spend Christmas. He got to watch Jess, even if she was behaving like a nesting bird, disappearing into the rec room with armfuls of stuff.

"Come and see!"

Jess had covered a table with green camoflage tarpaulin. She'd lowered the lights and two torches stood on their ends shining onto the cieling. Mismatched plates were piled with sandwiches from the fridge. Chocolate bars, tied around with string, hung from the spikes of that godawful sculpture from the atrium.

"Christmas dinner?" Becker asked.

Jess grinned. "With all the trimmings."


	43. Auld Lang Syne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 243

As the evening wore on Lester became increasingly concerned by the expression on Stephen's face. It was the look of a man with an amusing secret.

When Nick vanished at five to midnight, Lester's heart sank in a vague premonition.

Then midnight struck.

Nick, in full highland regalia, would have been a show stopper in its own right, without the addition of bagpipes played at full volume in close quarters.

Stephen curled up on the sofa, nursing his champagne, with a self-satisfied look as he measured reactions.

Lester realised, with horror, that he'd already accepted their invitation to Burns Night.


	44. You stay, I stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 244.

"All right, You stay, I stay!"

The words were out of his mouth before he thought. His heart clenched with the memory of his parents arguing in the shadow of Mount St. Helen's.

His mother had won that argument. She stayed. Ryan and his father left. Ryan knew they had been right to go. Didn't mean his father had ever forgiven himself.

You stay. I stay. No one faced danger alone on Ryan's watch. No matter how irritating or stubborn or just plain wrong they might be.

"That's... that's just childish!"

Funnily enough, his mother had said that as well.


	45. Extract from "Anarchism and Trade Unionism: 1848 - 1917" by O. M. Hughes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 245 (Ethan Dobrowski)

Ethan Dobrowski was a Bradford member of the Fabian Society, and author of anarchist tracts. After being ejected from the society, he was accused of murdering three prominent local members. Police communiqués of the time also implicate him in the notorious Wilson Factory Explosion1.

He was pursued to London where four industrialists and, finally, the policeman leading the investigation were strangled. Dobrowski vanished. One assumes shadier members of the Met took matters into their own hands.

1\. Harris (Harris, 1991) makes a cogent argument that the explosion was the result of lax safety measures and Dobrowski merely a convenient scapegoat.


	46. Fall from Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 246

James Lester recognises that he isn't a good man, per se. His life has been too full of grubby political compromise to fall into that category. However he's always tried to work towards the ideal of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

This makes his position very clear. There are the children to consider even if his wife seems increasingly like an intimidating stranger. So this whatever it is he most definitely does not have with Lieutenant Jon Lyle has to stop before it starts.

That is the whole purpose of this meeting.

Then Lyle smiles and James falls.


	47. Odd Man Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 247

Danny liked being the odd man out: the one who turned left when everyone else turned right; the bloke with the joke when everyone was focused and serious; the guy who came in by the ventilation shaft when everyone entered through the front door. He wasn't afraid of Lester. He didn't think Jenny was too uptight for her own good and he wouldn't have touched Helen with a bargepole, not that he ever got the opportunity.

So since everyone had written Patrick off as a psycho, the boy himself included. Danny intended to stick to his habit of a lifetime.


	48. Shattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 248

Time isn't like a sheet of rubber, bending flexibly around the gravity wells of black holes and dwarf stars. It is rigid. It curves like an elegant piece of glass crystal, translucent and fluting, bending back on itself. When it is subjected to a shock, like a hammer hitting glass, it shatters. The walls between the strands are breached. Events branch and eddy, where once they flowed smooth and undisturbed. Fault lines spread from the blow as jagged cracks. Shards of time splinter and fall, sparkling in the light of long dead suns and breaking into the here and now.


	49. Hidden in Plain Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 249

The peelers were hot on her heels. Emily's breaths were ragged and short as she ran down the alleyways. Unbidden, a chance comment of Matt's passed through her mind. The thought almost brought to a halt. She carried on, but turned her feet towards rather than away from Oxford Street. She twisted her hair up under the soft cap she had found in the raptor's nest; bundled up her knives into her cloak. Then she stepped out into the bustling crowd and slowed her pace to a brisk walk. "I'm just a delivery boy," she thought, "going about my business."


End file.
